


Quit

by brightbulbs



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Illness and recovery, M/M, and suffocation / drowning, graphic depictions of pain, mickey isn't in jail or prison, nobody dies so chill, post 5x12
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:16:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightbulbs/pseuds/brightbulbs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey has to quit to get better. The problem is, Mickey's not used to quitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quit

**Author's Note:**

> I will add more tags as they become relevant. I have been working on this Mickey-centric (and eventually Milkovich-centric) piece for months. Mostly outlines exist for now. I kept deleting parts that I didn't like, and editing. I'm still not quite satisfied with it overall, but I'm working on it. This first part is ready. It was going to be longer, but I decided to move two scenes to the next part because they are not ready. In the meantime, let me know if any more warnings need to be added.

Waking up in the middle of the ocean isn't a situation Mickey ever thought he would find himself in. He doesn't exactly remember how he got there, in the water. He mistakes the bright turquoise blue above him for sky and the pearl white glistening of the sun on the surface as clouds until he comes to his senses. Until he moves his head to look below him, the gradients of blue becoming increasingly dark. That's when the realization that he's drowning hits him.

Pressure builds in his lungs, and his nostrils burn. The surface is within reach, but a heavy sinking feeling floods into his limbs and he cannot move them. The breath of air he stored in his mouth cannot hold, and he lets go on instinct. Water inevitably begins to fill him up, silencing him. The whites of his eyes become red, blood vessels popping. It couldn't end this way, could it? 

It wasn't fair. The surface was right there. If he could just move - if he could just reach it, he could save himself. This? This was just fucking cruel. Impossibly cruel. The stuff of nightmares. It dawns on Mickey that this must be how he got there. If he could only will himself to wake, he'd be safe, but he knows that no one is there to shake him from his slumber. Not this time.

 

* * *

 

Mickey gasps loudly, gulping in air with a familiar smokey stale-stench. His hands claw at his sweat soaked blankets as he continues to hyperventilate frantically, eyes watering and chest heaving. Pins and needles prickle up his legs as he moves them and glass bottles crash to the floor from his nightstand, knocked over by his hands wildly looking for something solid to hold onto.  

He's wedges still between nightmare and reality, vision blurred with waves of white and turquoise forming into recognizable shapes. The nicotine stained walls come into view. Waves of water against his skin transform into beige sheets wrapped around his legs. Mickey leans back against flat and flimsy pillows with lacy trim. _Breathe_ , he tells himself. His chest slows its heaving, but that doesn't stop his blood from pumping faster than a steam engine. _Stop flipping the fuck out_ , Mickey. _Think about this_.  

Thinking about it only makes him feel sick. His vision blurs again, and he fears he'll find himself back there. In the water. He's crying, which makes Mickey feel stupid. He supposes that this is what happens when you try to shove it all down and keep it locked up like it doesn't matter. It threatens to burst free and tear you apart. Hand over breast, he feels the thump thump thump under his palm. His eyes fall on all the shattered bottles on the floor.

It's funny how things come full circle. Everything is in disarray again. It's as if nothing had been touched by anyone but him. Yet, nothing was the same.  

Mickey draws his knees up to his chest, hugging himself. He bites at the skin around his thumbnail and rocks himself. Sometimes he wonders if this was better than that. He tries to remember it without panic hitting him like freight train. It almost works. He can almost feel those arms wrapped around his middle. He would do that sometimes when things got like this. Wrap those arms around Mickey's middle, especially after he fucked the fear out of him. He would trace the rim of Mickey's belly button with his finger which lulled Mickey to sleep. 

Mickey remembers being touched, even though this room doesn't and that's what's so unsettling. Not being able to forget that. Thinking about it over and over and over. This obsessing over it has got to be a sickness, he thinks, and it's a sickness that he has got to shut down if he hopes to get any rest at all. It turns out that giving a shit will definitely kill you. Letting that liquid fall down his cheek is going to poison him, so he shouldn't dare let it fall. 

What is done is done, and what is gone is gone.

The pain and panic ebbs away from him little by little, and Mickey lays himself back down. He closes his eyes for the second time that night and drifts off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

There’s not much else to do than sit on the couch and nurse some bourbon, so that’s what he does. He does that a lot.

It turns out that drowning feeling doesn’t dissipate when he’s awake. He coughs and his lungs crackle like firecrackers on the sidewalk in July. Open up, Mickey. Here’s your glass of regret to swallow. He downs the bourbon. Feel it boil in your chest, bubble and pop. Cough it back up, and let it leave a bad taste in your mouth and let it burn your nostrils.  

He coughs, and it’s not a dream when his chest feels like it’s being cracked and pried open with pliers. It’s real and it hurts. Oh god, does it hurt and the mounting pressure is back threatening to burst. He takes another sip, coughs, and spits up on his chin. The glass drops from his fingertips as his whole body shakes, and it shatters on the floor. Ha, another one bites the dust. That was funny, Mickey. He laughs, though no sound comes out, his face contorted and red.

Mickey wheezes into his right side, clutching at his breast again and rocking into the arm of the sofa. So this really is how it’s going to be, isn’t it? Ashtrays filled to capacity sit before him on the coffee table and crushed beer cans litter the floor. They can’t all be his, can they? No. It’s not like he’s always alone. Iggy’s still there.

“It hurts so fucking bad, man,” Mickey reels back with an agonized sob and it reminds Iggy of when Mickey was a toddler, all helpless and scared and shit. Mickey swears under his breath as the pain from his chest radiates out and all but consumes him.

“Fuck, it hurts.”  

“What ch’you got is something nobody can cure, bro,” Iggy sighs, taking a sip of his own lukewarm beer at the dining table where he’s sorting out the mail. He wants to sympathize, but these dramatics have gone on too long. He stubs out his cigarette on his plate with a half-eaten bagel and pushes his chair away from the table, making his way into the living room where Mickey lay on the couch. He shakes his head dolefully.

“Shit, you look like death.”

Iggy doesn’t like the part where Mickey says nothing and does nothing; no fuck off or flip off. Just curls up tighter into the couch cushions, and whines open-mouthed. Iggy realizes that something is very wrong. Real fucking wrong. Mickey is close to passing out from the agony when Iggy decides to dial up Colin. The last thing he registers are the soft beeps of the numbers being entered into Iggy’s phone.  


End file.
